My tournament report is the more important piece, but that will have to wait until next week. I wanted to get this up before Grand Prix Toronto for all the #marduguys* out there.

At Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, I went 9-0-1 in the swiss with Mardu Pyromancer, eventually losing in the finals. I had a blast playing the deck, as it combined various strategies I was used to playing, so I was able to pick it up with little practice. If you've played decks like Jeskai Flash or Jeskai Black, you'll be able to pick this up pretty easily.

Sideboard

This is a fair deck that has some unfair draws. Occasionally it resembles a Legacy deck. It's also some of the most fun I've had in Modern recently.

My decklist for the Pro Tour was made by scouring the Magic Online decklists, taking a lot of inspiration from Galan Falakfarsa's GP Santa Clara deck, and listening to Mattia Rizzi on some of the finer points.

The goal of any of these velocity-based decks is to use your mana every turn. Most of the time, you should remove threats first, then draw cards and deploy threats. Obviously that can change depending on the matchup and game state, but that's the gist. Sometimes you get to slip a Young Pyromancer onto the battlefield in between all of that and get some value.

About Gerry Thompson

Gerry Thompson is a well-regarded Constructed specialist, deck-tuner, long-time pro, and SCG Tour end boss. He has eleven Grand Prix Top 8s with two wins and seven SCG Invitational Top 8s with two wins. He won Pro Tour Amonkhet and made the Top 8 of Pro Tour Gatecrash. Many records on the SCG Tour were first set by him.